Akash Magar
A Day in the Life of...
| Once trafficked into one form of labour, there is a strong likelihood that children may later be sold into another. For instance, a high percentage of girls from rural Nepal, recruited to work in carpet factories, are trafficked into the sex industry over the border in India. (Helping Hands or Shackled Lives? Understanding Child Domestic Labour and Responses to It, ILO/IPEC, Geneva, June 2004) |
Child Labour in the Rug Industry
The handmade rug industry exploits nearly 300,000 children in South Asia and is a major "employer" of child labour.
Children (usually aged between 7 and 14) from poor rural families are often sent to the city to stay with distant relatives and find work. In some cases, children are sold into debt bondage to pay off debts incurred by their parents, and in others, children are kidnapped or trafficked, and then sold into forced labour.
They are subject to malnutrition, impaired vision and deformities from sitting long hours in cramped loom sheds. They suffer respiratory diseases from inhaling wool fibres and wounds from using sharp tools.
Rugs are among South Asia's top export products and provide a high-employment sector for the poor. If child exploitation is a norm in a country’s principal industry, there is little chance to break the cycle of extreme poverty.
In Pakistan, young children whose parents take money in advance for their work on carpet looms are victims of a debt-bondage system. The children are paid half the wages of older workers and are not allowed to leave the premises until the debt is fully paid. Older workers sexually abuse these children, about a quarter of whom are girls under the age of 15. (A Rapid Assessment of Bonded Labour in the Carpet Industry of Pakistan, International Labour Office, March 2004)
While these are grim statistics, there is hope. RugMark's work is having a profound effect. Since 1995, RugMark has freed more than 3,000 children from looms and deterred thousands more from entering the work force. Educational programmes funded by the sale of RugMark-certified rug and donations to RugMark help these children through rehabilitation, daycare, literacy, formal schooling and vocational training. In Nepal, child labour in carpet production has dropped from 11% in 1996 to 3% today. RugMark is credited for this success because the number of licensed factories it inspected in Nepal grew to 65% during those same years.
Rugmark is making a difference in South Asia.
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